‘Aisling of Eire’ by Dorothy Keddington

Remember that scene in the 1983 film “Eddie and the Cruisers,” when Eddie Wilson tells Frank “Wordman” Ridgeway that they need each other like “words and music” need each other? “Words and music, man,” Eddie says. “Words and music.”

I couldn’t help recalling that phrase when reading Dorothy Keddington’s romantic novel, Aisling of Eire (Granite, 2002). You see, the book is packaged with an accompanying CD by Golden Bough and Men of Worth -- two groups specializing in the traditional music of Ireland and Scotland.

Book review: ‘Censored 2003’ by Project Censored

It’s been several years since I finished my schooling -- for the time being, anyway -- but I find that I’m still devoting considerable time to what I call my “homework.”

The only difference is that the required reading I’ve assigned to myself has more of a career focus, rather than an academic one. Hence, the subscription to “American Journalism Review.” And likewise, the purchase of Censored 2003: The Top 25 Censored Stories by Peter Phillips and Project Censored (Seven Stories Press, 2002).

Project Censored is an investigative sociology and media analysis project that is managed through SSU’s Department of Sociology in its School of Social Sciences. Each year, Project Censored compiles 25 important stories that were under-reported in the mainstream news media during the preceding year. It’s a long process, that involves the screening of several thousand stories by Project Censored students and staff.

About 700 stories are selected for evaluation, and the whittling-down process involves input, in stages, by about 150 people -- students, staff, faculty/community advisors and self-selected national judges.

As a newspaper writer, I consider it essential to be as informed as possible about the world around me -- particularly in areas that don’t always get as much attention as they should. And so, for the past the past three or four years I’ve faithfully obtained each volume as soon as it was available. (Note to the similarly faithful: There is no Censored 2002. Censored 2003 covers 18 months of under-reported news, including an analysis of various stories related to Sept. 11, 2001.)

This series of books is invaluable for the attention they bring to important news stories, the journals that cover them and the news outlets that don’t. Among this year’s line-up, two of the stories originally appeared in “Mother Jones” -- which is quite possibly one of the best magazines in existence. Its continued appearance in Project Censored’s pages was one of the influencing factors in my decision to purchase a subscription.

Also of value is the analysis this series offers concerning grassroots and independent movements within the area of information gathering and dissemination. Each volume provides a glossary of independent publications and activist organizations for people who want to get a more complete picture of the world around them.

In a way, these books serve as snapshots into the alternative media’s continued evolution. And sometimes, re-reading earlier volumes, the sense of history astonishes me. In Censored 1999, for example, Project Censored profiled Free Radio Berkeley -- a forerunner in the campaign to bring low-power radio into local communities. What was civil disobedience then is now duly licensed, and Lake County’s own KPFZ-LP 104.5 FM is a beneficiary of those pioneering efforts.

Published Nov. 9, 2002 in the Lake County Record-Bee

Local celebration promotes ‘The Grapes of Wrath’

The Lake County Library system is participating in a statewide program encouraging Californians to read John Steinbeck’s The Grapes of Wrath.

A local celebration and discussion of the book takes place from 9 a.m. to about 3 p.m. Saturday, Oct. 19 at Redbud Library, 14785 Burns Valley Road in Clearlake. Organized by Lake County Library Advisory Board member Harold Riley, the program is divided into two parts.

The morning session begins with a showcase of Woody Guthrie songs. At 10:30 a.m., participants will view a video of John Ford’s 1940 film adaptation of The Grapes of Wrath. Following a break for lunch, a discussion of the book will convene at about 12:30 p.m.

The Lake County Library is one of more than 140 libraries participating in the California Council for Humanities’ “California Stories: Reading ‘The Grapes of Wrath’” program. “While there have been several one city, one book programs, nothing of this scale or ambition has been attempted before,” said council Executive Director Jim Quay. “This program is the first ever to be statewide, to involve a book specifically relevant to California and to encourage participants to share their own stories.”

Throughout the summer, California residents have been encouraged to read The Grapes of Wrath, a story about the Joad family, tenant farmers in Oklahoma who migrate to California after losing their farm. The novel grew out of an assignment given to Steinbeck in 1936 by the editors of the San Francisco News, to write a series of articles on the condition of migrant farmers. In 1940, the same year that Ford directed the book’s film adaptation, Steinbeck received a Pulitzer Prize.

The statewide project culminates in October with a variety of observances designed to encourage people to explore the book and its relevance to contemporary California life. According to the California Council for Humanities, many of the book’s issues -- migration, poverty and the pursuit of the American dream -- are still of concern today.

Riley said that organizing a local celebration represented the closing of a circle for him. “I grew up as a migrant child in the San Joaquin Valley,” he explained. “I read the book when I was 17 or 18 years old, and it saved my life. Now I’m completing the circle, and at long last I can repay the compliment by introducing someone else to the book.”

“California Stories: Reading ‘The Grapes of Wrath’” coincides with the 100th anniversary of Steinbeck’s birth, on Feb. 27, 1902 in Salinas. It kicks off a three-year program to discover community and individual stories that will collectively tell the story of today’s California.

“The Golden State is uniquely diverse,” Quay said. “Half of us were born elsewhere, and that hasn’t changed in 150 years. Each Californian has a story to tell, but we have few opportunities to come together and find out about each other. This program gives Californians from every walk of life a chance to read and discuss the book together, consider the place of their own story in the story of California and discover the book’s relevance to current California issues.”

More information about “California Stories: Reading ‘The Grapes of Wrath’” can be found at the California Council for Humanities’ web site, www.calhum.org. For more information about the local observance, contact your local branch of the Lake County Library or call 995-3905.

Originally published in the Lake County Record-Bee.

Book review: ‘The Colors of Nature’

A diverse group of authors explore the intimate connection between the environment and the many races of people who inhabit the earth in The Colors of Nature: Essays on Culture, Identity and the Natural World, (Milkweed Editions, September, 2002).

The book was compiled to address a “lack” of published nature writing by people of color — which its editors, Alison H. Deming and Lauret E. Savoy, feel reflects the limited perspective of the publishing community and its target audience, rather than an absence of interest on the part of the writers.

According to Deming and Savoy, these essays include “themes of historical legacy, of dispossession, displacement and return, of relational identity and relationship to place. The book speaks across the lines of cultural identity — those defined from within and those imposed from without — to consider our place on earth and connections with each other.” That’s a pretty tall order, and the book’s contributors pull it off admirably and eloquently.

Nature writing as a distinct literary tradition originated in the late 18th Century, but don’t expect these writers to limit themselves to Romanticism, with its idealization of “nature” as something separate from man. The men and women in this anthology draw upon their own cultural traditions, as well as personal experience, in exploring their connections with the world around them.

Sandra Jackson-Opoku (“Writing the Diaspora: One Black Writer’s Journey from Cultural Isolation to Multicultural Inclusion”) can still recall the moment that she first realized there was a world of black experience beyond her limited vision. It was 35 years ago, in fourth grade, during an assembly that featured a performance by Haitian dancers.

“The Haitian dancers didn’t just dance and sing,” she recounts. “They burst onstage in a syncopated fury of drums and limbs and voices. Athletic brown limbs bent and swayed. Gaily colored prints unfurled like tropical flags. Even their slip-ups seemed stylish.”

Melissa Nelson (“Becoming Métis”), has had to reconcile the land management practices of her Native American ancestors with the environmental views of her European ones. “Many deep ecologists adhere to a myth of pristine wilderness and consider Indians anti-environmental because they want to ‘use’ the ‘untouched’ wildlands,” she writes. “Yet more and more people are finally realizing that the precontact North American landscape was well cared for and highly managed by its original inhabitants.”

Several writers, Robert D. Bullard among them (“Confronting Environmental Racism in the 21st Century”), tackle the controversial subject of environmental racism: “In 1996, the 54-mile stretch along U.S. Highway 80 was designated the ‘Selma to Montgomery Historic Trail,’” he states. “The trail is also designated an ‘All-American Road’ under the Federal Highway Administration’s National Scenic Byways Program.”

He continues, “Despite these federal government designations, and strong sentiment among black people, the Alabama Department of Environmental Management (ADEM) in 1998 approved a 200-acre landfill permit on the trail that many consider ‘sacred ground.’ This action makes real the extent to which environmental racism is allowed to operate. It is highly unlikely that a garbage dump would be proposed next to the Washington Monument or the Lincoln Memorial.”

Not everyone will have an easy time with this book. It brings up a lot of painful history — people bought and sold as property, indigenous populations exterminated in the name of progress — that some people might prefer not to face.

Likewise, for a writer to suggest that, despite our best efforts, racism is still entrenched in our society, may not be palatable to someone who doesn’t see a problem with the way things are.

If, however, you’re strong enough to face another point of view — that European-Americans committed atrocities in the name of progress, and that real, living, breathing people suffered for it; and that our actions have a direct impact on the lives that share our Earth — then go ahead and read this book. Nature writing as a genre is richer for these authors’ inclusion in it.

Published Aug. 31, 2002 in the Lake County Record-Bee

Filling in again at Observer American

I’m working at the Clear Lake Observer American again, for the remainder of this week, filling in for managing editor Dirk Damon. Today I started scanning columns, building pages and writing a guest column for Saturday’s paper. My topic is waste diversion, and the need to hold manufacturers accountable for the wasteful packaging they create in the first place.